Welcome to Alpha Academy, a special island to educate and nurture 100 girls to reach their full potential as alphas. Thousands applied, a hundred got in and word is, only one will survive. Do you have what it takes to be The One?
She's the one,
Who every boy wants and ever girl wants to be,
Who can charm the pants off the grumpiest old man in town,
Who's the girl every ex-girlfriend hates and every boyfriend adores,
Who dances like no one's watching and sings like no one's listening,
Who's the girlfriend that all boy's mothers love,
Who's the girl that's copied and mimicked in her fashion style,
Who's the one that's the alpha,
No matter what the occasion,
Who's the girl that always knows what to say,
Who's the girl who always steals the spotlight,
All the time.
Do you have what it takes,
To be The One?
CHAPTER ONE
Vivian Dresden's purple skating dress swished past her legs as she skimmed the ice rink twice before launching straight into a double Lutz jump and spinning into a camel sit-spin before straightening up again. A few dark curls escaped from her loose bun and dancing in the icy wind she created as she shot around the wind like an escaped bullet. Her dark eyes narrowed in concentration as she twirled and spun while the music sang through the arena and through her body. Make your body fluid and solid. She could almost hear her mother's words as she pulled up a leg and into an arabesque. Clenching her leg muscles tightly and sucking in her stomach, she completed a full 360 degree turn on a single thin blade of her skate. She finished the turn, lowered her leg and floated through an intricate set of steps and moves before gracefully striking her ending pose as the music swelled and finished.
"Not bad," her coach's thickly accented Russian voice commented.
Vivian's coach, Natalyia, glided up to Vivian and adjusted her arm position before scrutinizing Vivian with her piercing light blue eyes. Vivian stood motionlessly while Natalyia scanned her body for a single heaving breath, a wrong twitch of her fingers or a slight change of her elbow degree. She found nothing. Vivian's form was perfect, with her arms lifted like a ballerina at the barre, her slim legs tilted and her chin up. Her purple skating dress glimmered slightly in the light as the light bounced off the sequins that adorned the bodice and skirt. A few narrow straps held the dress on while modeling her delicate shoulders and toned arms.
"You stress much, Vivian," Natalyia shook her blonde head, "Good form but too much tension. I know you apply to Alpha but focus on skating while wait for accept letter." With her tight black skating dress, blonde hair pulled into the tightest bun Vivian had ever seen and her icy blue eyes, Natalyia looked strict and intimidating as well as wound up tighter than a drum. Natalyia Gerschenkron had been Vivian's skating coach since Vivian had first started at the tender age of 4. She was a former Olympic gold winner in the Russian Winter Olympics back when she was 23 and had settled into the job of coaching new skaters to win the gold.
Vivian lowered her arms and shifted out from her pose, "I'm not stressing!" That wasn't entirely true, Vivian had sent in an application to Alpha Academy a few months ago, back in the beginning of summer with a video tape of her skating programs and a ridiculously long essay that she had begged her friend, Meggie, to help her with. She had known that the acceptance letters would be arriving soon and had checked her mailbox consistently, waiting for a certain golden envelope.
Ever since Vivian was four, her dream was to win the gold in the Olympics. It had been her mother's dream too, back when her mother was still the beautiful and talented Danielle Dresden who worked every hour at rink to train for the gold. An unexpected fall and a leg injury had rendered her incapable of skating for over two years and possibly the rest of her life. Needless to say, Danielle had been devastated and furious with herself and had somehow gotten herself pregnant a few months later with Vivian's elder sister, Karolyn. Karolyn had also been sent to ice-skating school at the tender age of four but had quitted when she was 8 due to a terrifying fall and \an ankle sprain. No matter how much Vivian's mother had begged Karolyn to continue skating, Karolyn had stubbornly refused and never set foot on the ice again. That left Vivian to skate her mother's dreams as well as her own and make her mother proud by winning the gold. It was her mother's dream, and now – it was hers.
With the loss of her Olympic dream, Danielle Dresden now designed her youngest daughter's skating apparel, from simple skating dresses to elaborate dresses for competitions. Princess of Ice was the name of the fashion line that Vivian's mother had created while Vivian and Karolyn modeled the dresses. Vivian modeled them in action, from shots taken during her spins and jumps on the ice while Karolyn modeled them in a studio.
"Yes, you stress Vivian," Natalyia tsked, "Now, go over combo starting from double toe loop and you need perfect triple axel before go to Alpha."
Vivian merely nodded her head and sliced her legs through the air as she built up some speed before starting her double toe loop. Natalyia skimmed over to the edge of the rink and cued up Vivian's music.
A few hours after her grueling session with Natalyia, Vivian slipped her skates back into her gym bag and shimmied out of her skating dress and into an off-white elbow-sleeved thin shirt and a navy blue skirt. A thick black belt with a heart-shaped buckle completed her outfit. She sidled through the glass doors of the rink and headed towards the gym, located on the other side of the Colorado Springs Skating Center. She scanned the gym before her eyes rested on a blonde girl running lightly on a treadmill, making it seem like she was skipping through flowers rather than running through an intensive work-out session with Mr. Treadmill. She swept the gym again looking for another girl, this time finding her doing crunches with the intensity of a drill sergeant on a dark green mat near the corner of the gym.
"Meggie!" Vivian called out as she walked over to brunette who was doing her crunches. Meggie Chang was one of Vivian's best friends who skated alongside her as well as being the girl who helped Vivian write the application essay for Alpha Academy. Meggie was extremely pretty, thought Vivian with slight envy. With her brown almond-shaped eyes, perfectly straight hair and light skin tone, Meggie was the epitome of a perfect Asian beauty. The Chinese skater had been Vivian's bestie since they were both 6 and no matter how hard they tried to beat each other, they still were just as close as sisters.
"145, 146, 147," Meggie counted through her teeth as she did each crunch, "148, 149, 150! Done!" she collapsed back on the green mat as Vivian plopped herself down on the mat besides her. Meggie was dressed a lot more casually than Vivian, with a pair of plain gray sweats and a gray sports bra. Her toned stomach was perfectly flat, just like Vivian's. All the girls at Colorado Springs Skating Center had bodies that were never less than perfect. Not a single inch of extra fat were allowed the girls. All of them had a diet course planned out for them since they first started and eating chips and soda were considered one of the biggest sins a Colorado Springs skater could so.
"Almost done?" Vivian asked. Each girl arrived at the gym for a solid two hours of work-outs before heading to the rink for a private session with their own coach. Two hours of running at least three miles, at least 250 crunches, and a ballet class to keep their body in good condition made up the girls' work-out sessions. Vivian had already been at the rink since six am and had finished her early skating session as well as her daily work-out before heading back home where she would be homeschooled by her mother. Meggie went to a public school like any normal girl, spending less time at the rink than Vivian, who never allowed anything to conflict with her skating.
"Done with everything except for ballet," Meggie yanked her elastic out of her ponytail and twisted her hair into a bun before securing it with a bobby pin that she had seemingly plucked out of nowhere.
"Ballet is a nightmare," agreed a voice from behind Vivian. The blonde from the treadmill sat down gracefully besides Vivian and Meggie.
"Hey, Andie," Vivian hugged the girl.
Andromeda Winston was another one of Vivian's skating besties. With her golden blond curls and twinkling turquoise eyes, she looked like a perfect angel on the ice in her pearly white skating dress. "Jamie's still in ballet," Andromeda reported. She hooked a stray curl behind her ear as she flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "So what's up?"
"Ohmuhgud, I totally forgot!" Meggie leaped up from the green mat and rummaged around her gym bag. "I ran into Karolyn today at the mall and she said she was looking for you to give you this…"
Meggie dug around in her bag some more while Andromeda and Vivian looked on in confusion. "Found it!" she yanked out a gleaming gold envelope and waved it around wildly before handing it over to Vivian with a giant smile on her face.
"OHMUHGUD!" Vivian snatched up the gold letter and ripped it open.
Welcome to the inaugural class of Alpha Academy….
X-X-X
Summer Williams tapped her green pen on her chin as she stared at a sheet of paper in front of her. A bustling city hurried along below her apartment window as she threw a brief glance out the window, located conveniently right by her desk. Taxis whizzed by the streets, people rushed around and pigeons flocked around the heart of New York – New York City. She had lived in the big city her entire life, when her mother had first met her father. With her mother as a Broadway performer and her father as a talent-scout, New York City was the ideal home for the couple, hence the reason why Summer had grown up there.
She had gone to a certain private school in the heart of the city for her middle school years but would be sent to a boarding school the coming year if she wasn't accepted to Alpha Academy. A fact that devastated all of Summer's best friends, Rose Evans, Autumn Prescott and Raven Collups, from Sacred Heart Academy. If it wasn't Alpha Academy, it was either going to be Waverly or Easton. Her parents were always busy and thought it was best that Summer went to a boarding school. After all, weren't all boarding schools usually reserved for rich kids with busy parents?
Summer returned her attention back to her sheet of lined blue paper as the blue lines and red margin stared right back her. Writing songs and singing were Summer's way of letting her express the multitude of feelings that sometimes threatened to overwhelm her. Currently, a colorful swirl of emotions ran amok within her mind and bounced around like butterflies in her stomach. Anticipation, happiness and worry both danced gleefully throughout her body. Choosing the right words to begin a song always had provided a challenge for Summer, coming with the rest of the song was a piece of cake. Organizing her first few thoughts was the real challenge. Anticipation for the long-awaited acceptance letter from Alpha Academy, happiness from her delight as being awarded her first Grammy award just a few weeks ago and worry for the fear that she had not been accepted to Alpha Academy.
The honey-colored wooden furniture decorated Summer's room, pictures of her and her friends took up an entire wall and a tall bookshelf was stuffed with all her favorite books. Another set of shelves held her collection of CDs and a white Bose took up the entire corner of her room. Her twin bed with a green polka-dotted bedspread took up part of the room and the cream-colored carpet felt comfortably soft under her bare feet.
She bit her bottom lip, running a few phrases through her mind before a few words took shape in her loopy handwriting on the lines of the paper. Green words from her pen floated across the page as Summer bent over her desk. Memories danced through her mind, from singing her first solo at a charity event when she was six to the release of her very first album.
Her long blonde hair fell forward around her face as she bent over the page, her navy blue eyes focused intently on her writing. Sunlight streamed through the window, making certain streaks in her hair gleam golden. Freckles were sprinkled across her slightly large nose like rainbow sprinkles on the frosting of a cupcake and her long legs stretched out under the desk. She tucked a blonde wave behind her hair as she continued on writing, concentrating so hard that she didn't notice the apartment door bang open – announcing her younger brother's arrive from school.
"Yo, Summer!" Greg Williams shouted from the living room, "You got some mail, sis!"
Summer's eyes flicked up from her page in annoyance, she hated being interrupted when she was in the middle of writing. She stood up from the desk and stalked out into the living room. "What?" she demanded as she stared down her brother.
Twelve-year old Greg Williams tossed an entire stack of envelopes onto the dining table and threw himself down into a lazy sprawl on the fancy couch of the living room. Summer sighed at the stack of mail, it had always been her job to sort and organized the millions of letters her family received every day. With her mother as a well-known performer on Broadway, there were always countless letters asking her mother to join dance companies, movie contracts and more while letters were sent to her father who was a talent-scout and asking him to please come check out a certain high school or college. And Summer herself received quite a few letters from fans, recording studios and others that were related to her own job as a singer-slash-songwriter.
She pulled out a chair from the table and settled down to sort the pile of mail while Greg pulled out a math textbook and started on his homework. Her skintight light-washed jeans hugged her long skinny legs like an extra skin while a black t-shirt with THE BEATLES splattered over it completed her casual outfit. Her slim clear-polished fingers pulled envelopes off from the stack and placed them in each respective pile. A pile for advertisements, a pile for her mother, a pile for her father and a final pile for herself.
"Guess what, Summer?" Greg sat up from the couch and scowled slightly as his messy blond hair flopped into his eyes.
"What?"
"Mom's not even coming home for a few weeks," he glared at the text message from his phone, "She's never freaking home!"
"She's busy," shrugged Summer casually. Her mother had always been busy, busy, busy ever since Summer could remember. If she wasn't in some new movie or Broadway show, she'd be running some modeling gig. Selene Williams had gotten pregnant with Summer during high school and had married Summer's father, Roberto Williams just to get away from her horrified and furious family. Summer couldn't remember ever meeting her grandparents, aunts or cousins from her mother's side. Her grandparents had practically cut her mother off when they found out that Selene was pregnant. They were strict, old-fashioned and had thought teenage pregnancy was the worst thing that ever happened to any girl in the world. Now, her mother was too caught up in her glamorous life to pay the slightest bit of attention to Summer and Greg. If she wasn't doing something related to the city, Selene Williams would have escaped to some exotic island for a vacation with Summer's father, Roberto Williams.
Summer had learned from a very young age to look out for herself, making her extremely mature and responsible for her age. Her family wasn't rich enough to employ their own babysitter for Summer and Greg when they were kids so Summer had learned to take care of herself as well as Greg. A maid was employed to help clean the house at the end of every week but other than that, Summer and Greg were pretty much on their own. They had plenty of money to spare, money for food, money for clothes and money for expensive makeup although Summer barely wore anything besides tinted chapstick.
"Want to go out for some Chinese later tonight?" Summer tossed another letter for her mother in the pile and tilted back to look at her brother.
"Where?" Greg looked interested. Chinese take-out food was always good.
"That one place in Brooklyn," Summer answered, "I went there with Rose and Autumn once."
Rose Evans and Autumn Prescott were Summer's best friends since they met in the first day of sixth grade. Although Autumn was technically Summer's cousin, she was still considered one of Summer's best friends.
"Oh yeah, didn't we go there when Dad and Mom were at St. Bart's?" Greg's navy eyes gleamed with anticipation.
Summer and Greg were closer than the average brother and sister. Yes, Greg had pissed Summer off more times that she could count but the fact that they were each other's only family had brought them extremely close. With their parents gone the entire time, her mother's side of the family hating them, her father's side of the family somewhere in random Wisconsin, Summer and Greg were basically alone in the entire world with only each other.
"Yep," Summer popped the "p". She gathered up a few letters for her father and dumped them in one of the growing piles of mail. She picked up another handful of letters and saw a single gold envelope shining in the midst of the pile. She gasped.
It couldn't be. No, was it? It wasn't...or was it?
Summer stared at the golden envelope with increasing anticipation. Jumbled up thoughts bounced around her brain like bees on a wacked caffeine-induced fit. She had first applied to Alpha Academy back in May and here was a letter that looked very much like an acceptance letter. Was it...? If it was, going to Alpha Academy would be one of the best things that ever happened to her. She'd have a chance to live at Shira Brazille's infamous Alpha Island and met 99 other extremely talented girls. A one-way ticket to stardom.
"What is it, sis?" Greg looked over at his sister's sudden silence.
"I…..think I got something," Summer stuttered.
She carefully picked up the golden envelope as though she was afraid it might bite her and slit open the flap. A golden sheet of paper fell out. Summer unfolded the paper with trembling hands.
Welcome to the inaugural class of Alpha Academy...
Well? What did you think? Reviews are fantabulous. And as for this story, I've only got two submissions so far! Come on! This story isn't going anywhere until I get characters for it….and if I have to make my own up, where's the fun in that? Come on guys, you keep this story rolling Now as for houses, so far both submissions have stated their preference for Taylor Swift.
I don't have a beta so the mistakes are all mine :)
-The Lovely Psyche